3rd Line for the BOE

The BOE Massacre in the Democratic Party has the potential for causing quite a free for all in the November election. As most readers will remember, the Democratic leadership decided to oust almost all of the current Democratic BOE members from the ballot in November. Until yesterday I was putting the odds of a challenge of the ousted members at around 20%. However, in the last several days the phone lines of some of the members have been deluged with requests for them to get into the race and finish what they have started no matter what the Democratic Party bosses want. At this point I am raising the probability of them entering the race on a 3rd line to 75%.

The filing deadline for a 3rd line candidacy is 4PM on August 5th to turn in the petitions with the required signatures. I know that the petitions have been acquired from the Secretary of States office. Getting the number of signatures needed will be child's play. If it takes more than an afternoon to get the signatures then they aren't trying very hard.

If there is a 3rd line BOE slate then the entire election will be thrown into a malestrom of doubt. Until the good old boys in the Democratic Party decided to flex their muscle and stuff the BOE ticket with their candidates, I considered the race for Mayor to be a shoe-in for the incumbent. My quick calculation was that the incumbent would get 60% of the vote while Finkle got 40%. A 3rd line would cause me to throw that estimate out the window. Do the people that come out to vote for Marilyn Vitale and the other members of her slate vote for the Mayor or are they so mad they decide to vote for Finkle? Maybe they decide not to for anyone for mayor. Does the 3rd line bring out new people to vote or do they pull disenchanted Dems and Independents? What do they do with the mayoral race? All this should make for a very interesting fall election season.

BOE Budget Meeting

Here is the video from the BOE Finance Subcommittee meeting from Tuesday night. There is a good explanation of the budget that was finally passed. There are still some outstanding questions regarding health insurance owed by the BOE to the Town for the current fiscal year. That issue needs to be resolved soon since it would cause an approximate $800,000 hit against the BOE. I will post video from the BOE meeting itself once I get the time to do some editing. The meeting lasted several hours and I want to upload only those portions relevant to the budget.

Finance Subcommittee:

BOE Budget Meeting Tonight

The Board of Education will meet tonight to try and arrive at a budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year. The Finance Subcommittee meeting at 6PM will precede the full BOE meeting. A presentation will be given by the new BOE finance person. I will post as much video as I can after the meeting. I think there will be a huge turnout. From a discussion I had with the Chairwoman of the BOE today, it looks like the sports programs, nurses and library aides will be restored to the budget. Everything else is up in the air.

And Yet Another Story....

Another article this morning in Register from Mark Zaretsky. This is turning into a long running reality show. Hint to Gene, if you want this unfavorable story to go away you have to quit talking about it.

On another note, I will be creating a new show for the fall election season called, "Municipal Election News" which will air on ETV Ch 18 and online for those without Comcast cable. It will be a 20-30 minute broadcast that will cover the election highlights of the previous week. I plan on airing candidate interviews, review of the 2 (maybe 3) campaigns' political literature and opinion pieces. I had not planned to start the show until after Labor Day when the political season normally heats up but it seems to have heated up a little early this year.

The BOE Massacre

A quick note on the BOE Massacre this week in a New Haven Register story written by Mark Zaretsky. More to follow over the next day or two as this story isn't going anywhere. I expect quite the attack on the ousted BOE members over the next couple of days since the Mayor cannot have members of her own party attacking her and the Chairman of the DTC while at the same time running for re-election.

ZBA Meeting for July

The ZBA had their monthly meeting on July 16th at the Senior Center. A big discussion revolved around the opening of an clinic by Yale NH Hospital at an existing building on Route 80 near the fire house. A large group of people came out in favor of the project. I, for one, agree with having this facility in East Haven. If you want to see the discussion, it is in part 2 of the videos below.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Democrat Caucus Tonight *Update*

*Update* The DTC, following the marching orders of the Democratic leadership, axed Marilyn Vitale, Frank Hammell, Jon Inglese and Lisa Anastasio from the Board of Education ticket in the fall. The 4 BOE members are looking into their next moves which could include a primary for the Democratic nomination or a run on the 3rd line. Look for more here in the upcoming days as the dust finally settles over the BOE Massacre.

The Democratic Town Committee will meet tonight at 7PM at the Senior Center to pick candidates for the upcoming municipal elections. There is expected to be a floor fight between the BOE candidates recommended by the DTC leadership and an insurgent group of candidates lead by Marilyn Vitale. Most of the incumbent Board members were not recommended for another term by the selection committee. In a series of backroom meetings which were not open to the public or other members of the DTC, the selection committee and the town chairman decided to axe all but one of the current BOE members that wanted to be renominated. It has been widely rumored that the cause of the Democratic leadership's displeasure has been the failure to pass the mayor's version of the BOE budget when it came up for a vote at the last Board meeting.

More Campaign Finance *updated*

I finally wandered down to Town Hall yesterday to get the Mayor's campaign finance report. Here is the summary page. The details will be forthcoming as soon as I get time to scan the 34 pages. The short story is that the Mayor raised $18,650 during the reporting period and spent $17,750. Since she started the period with $37,910 in the bank she maintains a huge lead in available cash over her challenger. The biggest expenditures during the period are for polling services ($13,500).

More to come as I get these 30+ page documents scanned, ever so slowly, this weekend.

Update: here is the full campaign finance report for the Mayor. The pdf file is large so it may take a minute or more to download.

Town Council Meeting - 7/16/2009

There is a special Town Council meeting on Thursday at 7PM at the Senior Center. The agenda contains an item to do some repaving in conjunction with the RWA and action on the anti-Blight ordinance.

Campaign Finances

The July finance reports are out. I've got John Finkle's campaign report and will be getting the Mayor's report when I can get down to Town Hall later today or tomorrow. From the summary sheet Finkle has raised $22,775 and spent $14,984 leaving him with approximately $7,800 cash on hand. If the campaigns would be good enough to send electronic versions of their finance reports I will gladly post them here. Otherwise, I will scan the reports as I get time but that will take a couple of days since they run to 30+ pages each.

Look for more here as time permits.

July Town Council Meeting

The Town Council held their July Regular meeting on Tuesday night. The meeting was preceded by a public hearing on the proposed Blight Ordinance. There was quite a turnout of residents wanting to speak to the proposed ordinance. Most people wanted to add tougher noise provisions. One provision that I found interesting was the requirement that homeowners keep the grass in their yards below 6" in height. Due to my irregular mowing habits, I think I'm going to be in trouble on that one.

During the Town Council meeting itself a resolution was passed binding the town to take specific steps to build the fund balance back up over the course of the next several years. It was revealed that the fund balance was totally depleted during the fiscal year that just ended and that we might have a $1+ million deficit in the fund balance once the books are closed on the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Public Hearing:

Regular Meeting:

Special BOE Meeting Tonight

The Board of Education will be having a special meeting tonight at 7PM at the high school. The meeting will focus on hiring a new Finance Director and finally passing a budget for the fiscal year starting today. The starting point will be the budget proposed by the Mayor in a meeting with the Superintendent of Schools and several members of the BOE. The meeting was held Monday afternoon in the Mayor's office. By all accounts, including this article in the New Haven Register by Mark Zaretsky, the proposed budget will allow the BOE to avoid layoffs in the upcoming year. The cuts will be in administrative and maintenance costs. Other dollars were found in the estimates used by the Superintendent's office for heating the schools. The meeting should be very long and loud as both parties maneuver to score points ahead of this year's election.